Dragonfly Falling (46 page)

The others around the
table were mostly more of the same: tacticians of Sarn, the governing body from
among whom, and by whom, the ruling monarch was selected. They were men and
women wearing armour, even here, and none of them with a smile to offer her.
The grim drabness of this array was broken by a pair of darker Beetle-kinden, both
women, whose garments were dreary by Collegium standards but looked positively
flamboyant here. They had clearly been around Ant-kinden too long and had
borrowed their paucity of expression.

The silence had
stretched on for a while now, and Sperra realized that she should probably be
saying something. ‘Your Majesty,’ she began, and her voice was shaking. ‘I have
come here with a very urgent message from Collegium.’

‘We have received
messengers from Collegium only yesterday,’ noted one of the tacticians. ‘We
understand that you have been petitioning for this audience for almost a
tenday. It seems news has outstripped you.’

‘Yes and no, masters,’
Sperra said wretchedly. ‘I am come from Master Stenwold Maker of the Great
College to bring a warning of war.’

‘War has come,’ a female
tactician intervened, almost dismissively. ‘We will go to the aid of Collegium
and fight the Vekken. You should have no concern over that.’

Sperra coughed, finding
her voice dry up. ‘There is a greater war than that, ah, Your Majesty and
esteemed masters.’ She had no idea of the proper address for an entire Royal
Court at once, or even whether there was one. ‘You must have heard of the
Wasp-kinden and their Empire, as they call it.’

That took them a little
longer to consider, and Sperra sensed the thoughts flashing between them. At
last it was one of the Beetles that spoke up, after a nod of assent from the
Queen.

‘The city-state of Sarn
is not without resources,’ she said. ‘We have of course had intelligence of
these people, and know that they are currently investing Tark, the result of
which we await keenly. The extent of their ambitions is unknown but we are
considering what threat they may pose to us, should they continue to expand and
their ambitions remain unchecked.’

‘Then could I say
something about what I have seen, and about Master Maker, and Scuto, who’s the
person that recruited me.’ She was aware she was now jumbling it all horribly.
‘Only I can tell you what the Wasps want. They’re planning to take over all of
the Lowlands. They’ll do it city by city, you see, and they hope that everyone
will just sit back and let them. On account of . . . it’s like you said, just
then. Tark is under attack and, well, nobody really likes Tark. Anyway. I
certainly don’t.’ She looked from face to face. One of the Beetles nodded, but
there was precious little encouragement to be found anywhere else.

‘Anyway,’ she went on,
‘so Tark goes down soon enough, because these Wasps, they’ve done Ant-kinden
cities before. There’s a place called Maynes east of Helleron, and they took
that years ago, and they’re much better at it now. Tark is gone, let’s say, and
who cares? Only next they head for . . .’ She wanted to say Merro, her own
home, but that would not have strengthened her case. ‘For Kes, say. They get
some boats and lay siege to the place. And of course, I suppose you don’t get
on well with the Kessen either?’ She looked at them, and they gave her no
response, but this time she waited until a smile twitched the Queen’s lips, who
said, ‘The enmity between the cities of our kinden is well documented,
Fly-woman. Make your case.’

‘Well it’s made, then,
Your Majesty,’ Sperra said, ‘because we’re all sitting about glaring at each
other, and waving flags every time one of our neighbours gets got, until here
they are, at the gates of Sarn, say, and who do we call upon?’

‘We are Sarn,’ said one
of the tacticians shortly. ‘Therefore we fight our own wars.’

‘But what if they had
ten times as many soldiers, and better weapons, and they can fly, and just
shoot you down with their bare hands? What then? What if they’re too big for
any one city to take on? That’s what Master Maker keeps saying: there are lots
of them, more than any one city could fight.’

A silence. Again she
looked from face to face. ‘Please, do you not believe me?’ she asked.

The Queen shared a
moment’s glance with some of her advisers. ‘Your words are understood, but we
have more immediate concerns. You would not wish us, I am sure, to have us rush
to the aid of Tark while the Vekken besiege Collegium. We shall remember your
words, however. Once our present business with Vek is resolved, then we shall
speak further. We see some merit in what you say.’

And that, Sperra
realized, was the extent of her royal audience.

‘Something’s wrong,
isn’t it?’ Che said.

Achaeos sent her a
sidelong glance, but then admitted, ‘I have not been sleeping well, recently.’

She allowed herself a
smile. ‘Am I to blame for that?’

‘When I do sleep, I have
dreams . . . uncertain ones.’

She was about to give a
flippant answer but thought better of it. ‘I suppose dreams are important to
your people.’

‘They are, and I think .
. . I fear I know where these dreams come from. You remember the Darakyon, and
what we both saw there?’

‘I could never forget.’
Although she had tried. It had been after he helped rescue her from the Wasp
slave cells in Myna: they had been heading for Helleron and in the way was the
knotted little forest of the Darakyon. A Mantis-kinden name, she knew, but no
Mantis-kinden lived there now. However, Achaeos had told her that those who had
once called the place their home, centuries before, had never left. All
nonsense, of course. All superstitious foolishness from a people of hermits and
mystics, except that one night he and Tisamon had taken her into that wood and
shown her. It had been Achaeos reaching out to her, over the barrier that
separated their peoples’ worldviews.

And she had
seen
. In glimpses, perhaps, and for that she was thankful,
but she had caught sight of what still dwelled between the twisted trunks of
the Darakyon, in all its hideous, tortured glory, and her world had cracked,
and let in something new.

They were almost at the
nameless little gambling den by the river, and there were plenty of shadows
that could have hidden anything. She allowed her eyes to pierce through them,
calling on her Art, but the shiver did not leave her. ‘Are
they
. . . have they come here?’ she asked him.

‘No. They could not, I
think. But these dreams . . . they are calling to me. I do not know why, but I
will in time.’

They paused at the door,
nerving themselves. The Arcanum, mostly in the person of Gaff, the stocky
little man of unknown kinden, had not been forthcoming. They had met with him
several times, and sometimes with the Mantis Scelae as well, but received only evasion.
Now word had come for them. They had been summoned by the Arcanum. Something
had changed.

‘Do you think it could
be a trap?’ she asked, and he nodded glumly. ‘But these are
your
people,’ she protested.

‘The Arcanum are not
my
people,’ he said. ‘They are the political arm of the
Skryres, and they have no one leader but serve many in Dorax and Tharn. Much of
the time, it is said, they run the personal errands of their masters, who do
not always agree. The Arcanum has turned on its own people before now, so why
not against us?’

‘What option do we
have?’ she asked him.

‘None – but be ready for
trouble.’

They saw Gaff as soon as
they entered, in the midst of some game of chance. He noticed them too and made
hurried apologies to his fellows, leaving money on the table and hurrying over
to them.

‘You took your time,’ he
grumbled. ‘Come right with me, sir and lady. There’s serious talk to be done.’

He took them into a
backroom, heading past the place’s owner, and then into a room beyond, that
must have been part of the building adjoining. It was dark in there, a single
lamp burning on a desk, and it was crowded. When Gaff had taken his place there
was quite a gathering of people ranged there facing them. Che felt her hand
drift towards her sword-hilt now, though it would now be of no use.

Half a dozen were
Mantis-kinden. Scelae was seated on one corner of the desk while the rest
stood, lean and hard men and women watching the newcomers suspiciously. One
bore a sword-and-circle pin that recalled Tisamon’s: a Weaponsmaster, then, who
would be more than sufficient on her own to blot them out if she chose. Of the
other kinden four were Flies, and three of those were robed and cowled like
their masters. One was a Commonwealer Dragonfly. There were only three Moths in
all that number. An elderly woman sat on the corner of the desk across from
Scelae and a young man stood behind her, in an arming jacket with a bandolier
of throwing blades strapped across it. Central behind the desk, though, was the
obvious cause of all this assembly. He was thin and balding and, taken alone,
his grey, hollow face and white eyes did not suggest any great pre-eminence,
but Che could almost feel the crackle of authority surrounding him.

‘Master Achaeos of
Tharn,’ the man said in a precise voice. ‘Mistress Cheerwell Maker of
Collegium. Your recent careers have been quite remarkable. Do you know what we
are?’

Che and Achaeos
exchanged glances. ‘You represent the Arcanum, Master,’ Achaeos said.

‘We are the Arcanum, as
far as its presence in Sarn now stands,’ the balding Moth explained. ‘This is
all of us.’

The two newcomers
exchanged glances, while the assembled agents watched them implacably.

‘You have come to us
spreading warnings about the Wasp Empire. We are, of course, aware of those
savages and we have no wish to involve ourselves in their affairs, either as
allies or enemies. Still less do we wish to jump to the call of some Beetle
magnate. We have retreated from the ugly and violent world that your kinden
have built, and we would prefer that to be the end of it.’

And
why get everyone together just to tell us this?
Che felt her sword-hand
twitch, but fought the instinct down. There was more to be said. There had to
be.

‘You have no great
reputation on Tharn, Achaeos,’ the Moth spymaster said, ‘and few friends
either. Your choice of paramour has seen to that. We have no obligation to you,
still less to this woman.’

A
missed chance for an insult
. Che found that she was holding her breath,
and let it out carefully.

‘Master, I await your
“however”,’ said Achaeos. ‘Or are all of these to be our assassins?’

Scelae smiled at that,
and Che saw that she must have been murderess for the Arcanum in her day. The
spymaster glanced at her, and then back.

‘We had considered it,
but we would not have called you to a meeting for the purpose.’ The shadow of
humour twitched over his face. ‘We are not so procedural as that. So here is
our “however”, Achaeos. Matters have changed. Information has come to us that
has forced our hand, however much we resent it. I have spoken, by our
traditional ways, to the Skryres of Dorax. They have called me home to take
fuller counsel with them. They have said that we must do what can be done,
against these Wasp-kinden – for now, until the circumstances change.’

‘Thank you!’ Che burst
out, and he fixed her with a withering stare.

‘Do not presume,’ he
told her, ‘that we have any new affection for you or your people. It is the
mere chance of our times that we stand together. No more.’

‘Chance or fate,’ she
said, and knew immediately that she had overstepped the mark. For a second
there was a tension about Scelae that was likely to become an attack, but the
spymaster was not so much angry as shaken.

‘Fate,’ he echoed.
‘Fate’s weave has been unclear . . .’ His composure seeped back and he shook
his head. ‘Scelae shall lead the Arcanum here when I am gone, and what can be
done shall be done. Tharn has no armies to set against this Empire, but there
is little that eyes that know no darkness cannot see. For the moment, while
this lasts, those eyes shall be used to see in your cause.’

It was two days before
they discovered what had changed the Arcanum’s mind. Achaeos and Che came back
from an errand in the foreigners’ quarter to find a sense of utter despair.
Scuto was sitting at the large table in the common room of the taverna they
were staying at, with his papers strewn utterly unheeded all about it, and some
even on the floor. Beside him was Sperra, looking so ashen that Che thought at
first her wounds must have reopened. She was trembling, and if Scuto had been
less thorny it seemed she would have been clinging to him. Behind them both,
Plius sat like a dead weight in a chair. He had a pipe out and was vainly
trying to light it, but his hands shook so much that the little steel lighter kept
going out.

‘What’s happened?’ Che
asked, and then a terrible thought struck her. ‘Uncle Stenwold! The Vekken? Is
he—?’

‘No,’ Scuto said
hoarsely. His eyes were red, she saw, and his hands had clasped each other
close enough to pinprick bloodspots with his own spines, the only time she had
ever seen him injure himself. ‘No fresh news from Collegium.’ In truth news
from Collegium was coming in all the time. All day great slow-moving rail
automotives had been dragging themselves in at the depot with all those
residents of Collegium who could not stay to defend their home. Che had
expected people from all walks of life, and indeed there were many foreigners,
whose lives in the College City had been measured in a few years only, but most
of the refugees were children. They arrived with small bags of food, books, a
writing kit and spare clothes, and with little notes telling the Sarnesh who
they were. The Queen of Sarn was honouring her city’s ally in its time of need.
With typical efficiency the homeless and the lost, all these displaced
children, were found lodgings amongst the Ant families of the city.